Cait Conley, New York

Cait Conley is a Democratic candidate for New York’s 17th Congressional District in 2026. A fourth-generation Hudson Valley native from a working-class family, she graduated from West Point and served 16 years in the U.S. Army with six overseas deployments including combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, earning three Bronze Stars and becoming one of the first women officers to serve on the tactical side of a Special Operations unit. She later served as Director for Counterterrorism on the National Security Council and as a senior advisor at CISA leading election security efforts, and holds master’s degrees from both MIT and Harvard’s Kennedy School.